Money you would rather not look at

Almost nobody's money problem is arithmetic. People who could not tell you their interest rate can tell you exactly which drawer the letters are in, which is a different kind of knowing and a more expensive one.

Avoidance is the first of the three books here. Not looking works — it genuinely removes the sick feeling, immediately, every time — and that is precisely why it is so hard to stop, and why the problem grows in the dark while you are being spared. The fix is not a spreadsheet and a budget you will abandon by the eleventh. It is ten seconds a day at a number you have decided in advance not to have a feeling about.

The second is the order of operations. Saving what is left at the end of the month is a plan that has never once worked for anyone, because nothing is ever left; the month expands to meet the balance. Moving it on payday, before the month gets a look at it, is the same person saving the same money and it works, which tells you the problem was never discipline.

The third is buying things. The lift when the parcel lands is completely real. It is also over in about a day, and it was never attached to the object — which is why the cupboard is full of proof and the next one still feels different.